The Alpha School model compresses what takes 6 hours + homework elsewhere (core academics) into about two hours a day of self-paced, mastery-oriented, adaptive computer-based learning, with adults acting more like coaches/guides than traditional teachers.
The rest of the day is spent on projects and ‘life skills’ activities instead of conventional classroom lectures. They give the example of students running an Airbnb and a food truck to learn about entrepreneurial skills, recording videos shared with other students to learn public speaking, doing 5k races, etc.
The deal 🤝 they make with students is basically: If you do a good job on the academics in the morning, doing four 25-minute Pomodoro blocks ⏲️ on the software, you are “buying back” the rest of your dayto work on fun projects.
I know that as a student, I would have loved that. Trade two focused hours for the rest of my day back? Yes please! So much better than being lectured at for 6 hours a day… 🥱
Here’s an intro video to the school that goes through what they do in each grade: